Gratitudeis a 2015 Photo Blog about the positive effects of gratitude.

It started out as a pilot project in December 2014. In December 2014 the headline was Joy. Each day from December 1st till December 24th I searched for, and took a photo of, a situation during that day that brought me joy. The photos were posted on https://www.facebook.com/tinapostaagaard.

The aim of that project was to illustrate how training your mind to focus on situations that bring you joy can add more energy to a transformation process. At the same time I wanted to illustrated that joy can come from even small every day situations, and if they don't occur by themselves you can take charge and create them yourself. You don't have to wait for great things to happen to you, if you want to energize your transformation.

I have decided to continue the project, this time however for 365 days, and my 2015 project is called Gratitude.

Why Gratitude?

Scientist has recently found that gratitude has the power to reshape your neural pathways. It makes you happier and can change your attitude about life. Like an emotional reset button, you can sort of hijack your emotional system. Especially in hard times, or during transformations that requires a lot of your energy this can be of great value.

Studies has shown that people who were asked to keep a daily journal of things they were grateful for increased in determination, attention, enthusiasm and energy compared to control groups. Other studies has shown improvements in optimism, improvements in exercise patterns, reduction in physical ailments, so these subjects had fewer aches and pains, they moreover had better sleep, reduced tendencies to depressions, and they had a greater feeling of happiness compared to control groups.

Effects on Body and Brain

Some of the reasons for these results are that gratitude has measurable effects on multiple body and brain systems. Those documented effects include a beneficial effect on mood neurotransmitters (serotonin, norepinephrine), reproductive hormones (testosterone), social bonding hormones (oxytocin), cognitive and pleasure related neurotransmitters (dopamine), inflammatory and immune systems (cytokines), stress hormones (cortisol), cardiac and EEG rhythms, blood pressure, and blood sugar. Scientists have also found that people who showed more gratitude had higher levels of activity in the part of the brain called hypothalamus. This is important because the hypothalamus controls a huge array of essential bodily functions, including eating, drinking and sleeping, and it has a great influence on our metabolism and stress levels.

We need to bring good Stuff into our attention

Feelings of gratitude directly activated brain regions associated with the neurotransmitter dopamine. “The brain's primary reward chemical is called dopamine," sais Mitch Wasden, CEO of Ochsner Medical Center in Baton Rouge, who holds a doctorate in human and organizational learning. "The interesting thing, however, is that we can't feel rewards or threats unless we focus attention on them. Many good and bad things happen in our life every day, but until they come to our attention, we don't get the neurotransmitter release that allows us to feel good or bad."

Start a Virtuous Cycle

Gratitude can have such a powerful impact on our lives because it engages the brain in a virtuous cycle. Alex Korb, Ph.D. and postdoctoral researcher at UCLA explains that our brain only has so much power to focus its attention. It cannot easily focus on both positive and negative stimuli at the same time, and on top of that our brain loves to fall for the confirmation bias, that is it looks for things that prove what it already believes to be true.

The production of dopamine mentioned before reinforces that as well. So once you start focusing on things to be grateful for, your brain starts looking for more things to be grateful for. That’s how the virtuous cycle gets created.

Practice makes Masters

Gratitude, is related to thankfulness, gratefulness, or appreciation. It has got to do with feelings as well as attitude, and in order to feel gratitude you need to be aware, notice and acknowledge things, people, circumstances or just life itself.

Realizing that other people are worse off than you is not gratitude. Gratitude requires an appreciation of the positive aspects of your situation. It is not a comparison.

If you haven't been practicing this before, it might not be that easy in the beginning. In schools and universities we are often trained to find and solve problems, not focusing on gratitude.

Gratitude takes practice like any other skills. It might take approximately one month of practice each day before you can see and feel clear results. It helps keeping a journal. Writing down what you’re grateful for is an excellent way of training these skills. Research however have documented that after this month the effects can last up to six month.

But well, who knows, maybe you'll get addicted just like me, and wanna keep on after that month. I hope you'll join me, and I'll love to hear about your results.